KEY POINTS:
Labour has fought back to within 5.2 points of National in the latest Herald-DigiPoll opinion survey.
The clawback comes in a month when National's leader, John Key, has not been in the media spotlight nearly as much as Prime Minister Helen Clark.
The poll rounds out a bad
week for National, which fumbled the announcement of its intentions for health policy and also drew a hot public response when its deputy leader, Bill English, talked about partially selling some state-owned assets.
The full impact of those events will not be seen until future polls, meaning the gap could close even further.
The DigiPoll survey puts National on 44.8 per cent support, down 5.5 points on the August poll. That's its lowest rating in the survey since February.
Labour is up 2.8 points to 39.6 per cent.
The Greens are the only other party to pass the crucial 5 per cent threshold, rising 1.2 points to 7.2 per cent.
If the poll translated into votes at an election, the country's two major parties would be left battling for the favour of the Maori Party in order to form a government.
New Zealand First would miss out on a place in Parliament unless one of its MPs managed to win an electorate seat.
Helen Clark was last night encouraged to hear of the poll result shortly before she boarded a flight to Europe for a 12-day visit.
A spokesperson said the PM was pleased to see Labour's rise in support had come off National's vote.
Helen Clark had told her team to "throw themselves at their jobs 1000 per cent" and felt she was doing that herself, the spokesperson said.
Mr Key said National would continue to work hard to earn the right to be the next government. "Polls will move around a lot between now and the next election."
Greens co-leader Russel Norman viewed his party's 7.2 per cent support - its highest DigiPoll rating since February - as possibly reflecting its consistent and constructive approach to issues such as climate change.
"We haven't made any major mistakes. We've been pretty consistent."
Helen Clark maintains her position as preferred Prime Minister in the DigiPoll survey, rating 46.8 per cent support, down 0.6 from August.
Mr Key is still close, and has actually risen to 42.2 per cent, up 3.2 points on a month ago.
Helen Clark appears to have largely brushed off a headline-grabbing attack from former Labour Prime Minister Mike Moore, and it seems Corrections Minister Damien O'Connor's decision to take a suspended prison guard on a parliamentary rugby tour to Europe has also had little impact on the government's fortunes.
Instead, other events such as Helen Clark's attending the Apec leaders' summit and voicing the argument against nuclear power may have helped her, and the government's climate change announcements and talk of compensation for lower-income people are also encompassed by the tail end of the polling period.
The PM's office also pointed to a positive response to the KiwiSaver retirement savings scheme as a potential factor in the narrowing of the poll gap, and said a new organised crime strategy and telecommunications reform mattered to people.
The decision by the Security Intelligence Service to withdraw a risk assessment certificate against Ahmed Zaoui was also covered by the polling period, which may have helped the Greens, who through MP Keith Locke battled hard for the former Algerian MP to stay here.
